Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Tonight I bring you a first look at Guild Wars II, having played the most recent beta build this last weekend.

I know a lot of you, much like myself, see NCSoft in any capacity and
automatically go, "Oh yay, another Korean grinder." The term
affectionately (or not so affectionately) tied to pretty much every game
NCSoft has had its hand in (Lineage, Tabula Rasa, Aion, etc.), as well
as all the others that fit the bill (Tera, Rift, etc.) You know the
sort: remarkably pretty in the art department but also remarkably
shallow in every other capacity, resulting in months after months of
what equates to mind-numbing grinding of monsters with little to no
actual content to compel you forward. Other MMO's at least try to mask
the grind with fluff like quest-related stories and group activities.

But I digress, because much to my surprise that's not what Guild Wars II
is like at all! You may not believe me at first because at a glance,
the art direction makes it seem very, very much like that is what you
can expect. Once you get into the game however you quickly realize this
is not the case. In the course of three days I made it to level 15
without ever just having to senselessly kill wolves, or spiders, or
bats.

Quests come in a few varieties and are voice acted, some better than
others. There are personal story quests to advance your class/race/caste
storyline which are somewhat unique. There are typical quests. Then
there are area quests (much in the vein of Warhammer Online) where the
overall goal is worked at by everyone nearby, not just you and whoever
might be in your group. So long as you contribute, you get credit.
Completing such quests earns a good portion of exp, whereas killing
stuff just for the sake of killing it isn't half so rewarding.

Area quests may also have an actual impact on the environment, short
term or not. Such as the entrance to a cave being blocked off, or a city
being under attack. Which makes them somewhat more interesting than
just things happening and then things no longer happening. If there
aren't enough people around to finish a goal, there just might be
consequences. You can "lose."

While it's all still questing it isn't a boring hassle.

You can also get a good amount of exp just from exploring, and there's
plenty of unique locations around the world that are actually worth exploring. Kind of a win:win there. See cool shit and level up, why not do this?

Speaking of class/race/caste, I should probably explain what the hell
that even means. During character creation you select your class as per
usual and your race but you also select several other options that will
later change the way your personal story progresses. Such as caste --
being a commoner rather than a noble (human) or being born in the dusk
cycle rather than the dawn cycle (Sylvari). I have yet to play long
enough to see the end outcome of these decisions, but I've seen far
enough that I'm aware they have an impact on how the game will play out
for you.

Character creation itself is nice. There are base faces
from which to choose from and then sliders for things such as eyes,
nose, lips, chin, jaw, etc., so that you may further refine these base
options into something more unique to your character. There are also a
variety of body types and a height slider. Hair options are currently
tied into racial choice, but are quite detailed and numerous. And there
are a ton of colors from which to choose for things such as eye color,
hair color and skin tone. One of my personal favorites here is the
attention to detail. If you choose to be dark skinned -- you will have
light skinned palms.

Another way in which you can further
customize your character's look is through armor dyes. Yes, you read
that correctly. You could do this in DAoC way back when and since then
it's a feature that has been largely absent in recent titles. It makes a
reappearance here, starting you off with a few basic options and
granting you more as you play through looting and perhaps other means
I've simply not yet discovered.

There are a number of classes from which to choose, all pretty well
explained on the game's official site, so I do not feel compelled to
needlessly repeat that information. Same goes for the races at your
disposal. One thing I will say, however, is that there is no stealth as
stealth is traditionally presented in MMO's. Instead you have a number
of abilities as a Thief that will put you into stealth, but only for a
few seconds at a time. Some people will love this, other will hate it. I
personally dislike it. During my playtime as a thief I had a number of
survivability issues that would have easily been solved by being able to
stealth for longer than 3 seconds at a time. It is beta however, I
imagine these things will be taken into consideration before launch.
Either increasing stealth time or improving innate survivability.

Artistically the game is beautiful. Character models, creature models,
architecture, weather effects, and reflections are all lovely.
Environments are large and spacious. The music is expressive and from
what I've witnessed suiting to whatever situation you may be in at the
time. There's also ambiance. People talking, birds chirping, foot steps
in the distance, etc. All making you feel very much a part of the
location you're in. Excellent for role-players, certainly.

Interestingly, despite being so damn pretty the game also runs well and
loads quickly. I would say the graphics are easily above and beyond
SWTOR in every perceptible way, but the game loads at least 4x quicker,
with a more consistent frame rate to boot.

Mechanically the game is fun to play, with a combat system reminiscent
of the original Guild Wars only more polished. WvWvW is a PVP mechanic
similar to Dark Age of Camelot's 3 realm RvR system, so there is a lot
of appeal to that. Three servers vie over a map, and the victors get
special bonuses. Unlike Battlegroups in other MMO's these match-ups are
not permanent and will alternate so that at no point are you gong to get
stuck on the losing side as the under-dog forever. There are also quick
match games, much like Battlegrounds in other games (DAoC, WOW, SWTOR,
etc.).

The auction house is stable and you can check your mailbox from
anywhere, which is nice. Though presently you cannot open trades with
other players, the only way to transfer items or money from person A to
person B is to mail it to them. Not a huge issue, just a little strange.

Much to my dismay there are not a ton of additions specifically for
role-players. There is an extremely limited number of emotes presently
in game, walk isn't a toggle, and you can't interact with the
environment a whole lot (such as sitting in chairs). That said, people
role-play anyway. It's rare to find in a game's beta, but I encountered
more role-play in three days of GW2 beta than I have in most retail
MMO's presently on the market.

There are chat bubbles and custom emoting
is in game. Though, custom emotes have an excessively
long range, sometimes carrying over almost the entire zone, which is a
little weird. As a plus it means you can tell there's RP happening and
go search for it. There was never a time where I dropped a custom emote
and at least 5 people didn't show up soon after. Kind of nice.

There is also something of an appearance tab, though not in an
incarnation you'll be overly familiar with. Rather than your combat
armor/weapons tab taking stat precedence over your appearance tab, one
replaces the other. Which I actually prefer. I have a strong issue with
someone running around in a bikini only as it turns out it's actually
got the magical stats of a full suit of plate armor. In Guild Wars II,
if you have your Town Clothes on and leave the city to go try and
quest... you are going to die miserably. As well it should be.

To wrap it up here, though I'll undoubtedly add more and amend things
after future betas, the game has no monthly subscription fee, so you
only need to pay for the base game. Which is $60.00 and can be
preordered now despite that there is no set launch date at this time.
This means even if you only play casually, it essentially pays for
itself in the first few months (other MMO's charging $15.00 per month in
addition to their base price). In essence, I don't see much of a reason
at this point not to play.